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Veterinarian Referrals & Second (and Third) Opinions & Telephone Consultations

We welcome referrals from other veterinarians in our area or from out of our area. We are very respectful of the relationship that you have developed with your veterinarian over the years and do not want to impact that negatively.

If your veterinarian refers you to our service, we will call the referring veterinarian to talk with them about our findings, and will follow up with a Consultation Report that we fax to your veterinarian’s office.

If you are self-referred to us, we request that when you arrive for your initial appointment that you bring with you your pet’s medical records and any important diagnostic test information as well as X Rays, MRIs or CAT Scans. Since your pet’s problem is so complicated that you need to come to us to help unravel the problem’s complexity, it will save us time if these informational materials are available for Dr. Silver or Dr. Sanderlin’s review during your appointment.

Dr's Silver and Sanderlin will, if their clinical time permits do telephone based consultations for those pets and/or people that do not travel well, or for the people and pets who live too far away to come in person. Of course, it is always superior for a veterinarian to see his patient directly, but circumstances do not always allow for that. Telephone consultations are 30 minutes in duration.

It is important for the doctor to have all of the diagnostic tests and medical records available at the time of the call. Because our doctors are also seeing patients in our hospital, it is possible that a telephone consultation that was scheduled, may need to be rescheduled if a local patient has critical needs and must be seen ASAP. The physically present patient will always have priority over the telephone consultation patient, unfortunately. Because a veterinary hospital does not function like “Clock work”, the doctors are often late for these telephone consults. We try to schedule them at the beginnings of the morning or afternoon, before appointments become potentially at least, backed up. But if there are openings we can schedule at other times during the day.